Canada Olympic Speedskating 2018: Top Highlights, Stars from Pyeongchang

It was a gold-medal performance for Canadian speed skater Ted-Jan Bloemen as he defeated archrival Sven Kramer of the Netherlands to take home the top prize in men's 10,000-meter speedskating Thursday morning (Canadian time) at Pyeongchang.

Bloemen watched the majority of the skaters perform before he got his chance in the penultimate pairing of the event. He was strong from the start and finished the long-distance race with an Olympic-record time of 12 minutes, 39.77 seconds.

Kramer was expected to push for a gold medal, but he struggled and failed to rise to his usual level and finished in sixth place, more than 30 seconds behind Bloemen's time. Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands won the silver medal, while Nicola Tumolero of Italy won the bronze medal.

No Canadian skater had won a medal in the 10,000-meter speedskating event since Frank Stack won a bronze medal in 1932.

Bloemen had previously won a silver medal in the 5,000-meter race in Pyeongchang.

Bloemen was born in the Netherlands but felt he did not get the support he expected from the Dutch program and moved to Calgary four years ago. He gained citizenship because his father was born in Canada and lived there for seven years.

On representing Canada in the Olympics, Bloemen said after the race, per Pete Evans of CBC Sports: "I wouldn't want it any other way. I have such a great team around me, I'm so proud and so grateful to them."

Fellow Canadian representative Jordan Belchos had a solid race, finishing fifth with a time of 12:59.51. While he could not make the medal stand, he managed to beat Kramer by more than 1.5 seconds.

Canadian women were not as successful in speed skating in the 1,000-meter event Wednesday night. Kaylin Irvine finished 23rd in the event with a time of 1:16.90, and that was 3.34 seconds behind gold medalist Jorien ter Mors of the Netherlands, who finished in 1:13.56.

Fellow Canadian Heather McLean finished slightly behind Irvine in 25th with a time of 1:17.25. 

Nao Kodaira and Miho Takagi of Japan won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

The next speedskating event on the schedule is the women's 5,000-meter race Friday morning at 11 a.m. ET. Isabelle Weidemann and Ivanie Blondin are the two Canadian athletes on the event's start list.

The 22-year-old Weidemann won Canadian national titles in the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter races. She has finished as high as fifth in the 5,000-meter world championship.

Blondin is one of the favorites in the mass start event, which is making its Olympic debut in Pyeongchang. She won a bronze medal in the 2017 Worlds in the 5,000-meter race.